JONATHAN COMEY — NFL Blitz: Payoff pitch is Patriots will get a bye

I've got to be careful about what I write about the future of New England sports, since the last two bold proclamations I remember making were:

I've got to be careful about what I write about the future of New England sports, since the last two bold proclamations I remember making were:

1. The Jets had no chance to win last year's playoff game in Foxboro.

2. The Red Sox were in the best Sept. 1 position to make the postseason in their history.

Swing and a miss! And another!

That said, I will timidly go where no man has gone before and suggest that the rest of the Patriots season boils down to tweaking the roster, settling into a defensive niche and staying healthy — because the No. 1 seed in the AFC is basically a two-team battle between Baltimore and New England, and a first-round bye in the playoffs is more or less guaranteed.

The AFC has some good teams, but six weeks of evidence is enough for me to put New England and Baltimore clearly at the top. Both have one loss, both are very difficult to beat unless you play a perfect game, and neither has a particularly challenging schedule the rest of the way.

The rest of the AFC contenders — Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Oakland, Buffalo, San Diego, the Jets, whoever wins the AFC South — are all pretty flawed, and face tougher roads to January. There won't be any 13-3 teams in that bunch. Even Baltimore, for all of its strengths, lost decisively to Tennessee and has yet to really take that major leap forward with Joe Flacco at the helm.

But for the Patriots, 13-3 seems like a pretty accurate prediction — maybe even a conservative one. It'll be even clearer when they return from this week's bye for their biggest regular-season stretch: at Pittsburgh, vs. Giants, at Jets.

Three tough games, but none of those teams match up with the Patriots right now. The Jets don't have the offense, the Steelers aren't able to force mistakes, and the Giants don't have the defense. The Patriots will be favored in all three games — yes, even the one at Pittsburgh — and wins in all three would more or less wrap up the No. 1 seed considering their closing stretch.

Their final seven games are: home vs. the Chiefs, at the Eagles, host Colts, at Redskins, at Broncos, host Dolphins, host Bills. At most, we're talking about two losses here, most likely at Philly or the home finale against Buffalo, but clearly this team is going to be 13-3 or better.

Of course, it won't matter much if they pull another disappearing act in the playoffs. Making sure that doesn't happen should be a constant thread in Bill Belichick's preparations even as he sticks doggedly to his one-week-at-a-time approach.

What needs to be fixed?

There's been a lot of talk about the Chad Ochocinco experiment and its relative failure — but when you have the No. 1 offense in the league, failure is a pretty strong word. Is Ocho a bust, unworthy of the money spent on him? So far, unquestionably, yes. He does provide insurance should any of the Pats' real Big Four (Welker-Branch-Gronkowski-Hernandez) go down, but he doesn't provide much else.

That said, the rest of the Patriots' period of veteran shopping went quite well. Albert Haynesworth has been every bit the dominating force the Patriots want him to be when he's in the game. He's only going to play half the snaps, but there's a noticeable difference when he's out there.

Andre Carter has been their best defensive player thus far, solid in run defense and disruptive in pass rush. Mark Anderson (four sacks) has been a pleasant surprise, and while the jury is out on Shaun Ellis, he's playing major snaps and starting.

Still, the best pickup they made in the August signing frenzy was Brian Waters, who has been their most consistent lineman at right guard and enabled them to slide Dan Connolly to center without a worry.

Overall, the front office gets a solid A-minus. The coaching, the same. The offense, an A "» and the defense? It's tough to judge. Overall, I think their No. 14 rank in points allowed (22.5 PPG) is more a reflection of how they've played than their No. 32 rank in yards allowed (423.7), but they've been average at best.

What's the problem? It's not run defense, which has been solid. And it's really not tackling, either. According to Pro Football Focus, which tracks every player on every play, the Patriots are averaging 5.8 missed tackles a game — up from 4.4 a year ago, but right around the league average. They've got 12 sacks in six games, which is also around the league average.

Maybe the problem is that the defense doesn't need to be much better than average for this team to win every game. Maybe it's that there are a lot of new roles and responsibilities (and names) that need to be learned before everything clicks.

Whatever it is, it'll likely be fixed as much as it can be when the real season rolls around in January "» and hopefully February.

Jonathan Comey is sports and features editor of The Standard-Times. Email him at jcomey@s-t.com